Sure, it sounds like the holiday season was all doom and gloom for retailers. But this cloud has a silver lining – especially for specialty stores.

Concerns about the lagging economy, unemployment and a potential war with Iraq caused holiday sales to grow just 1.5 percent on a same-stores basis, according to the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and UBS Warburg.

It’s the lowest holiday gain since 1970.

ShopperTrak RCT’s National Retail Sales Estimate (NRSE) reported that the holiday retail season will be down 11 percent from 2001. And the National Retail Federation comes off as the optimist in the group, with final increases for the season expected to be in the range of 3.5 percent.

This sluggish performance will be sure to hurt the bottom lines of such big retailers as Wal-Mart, which led a handful of big stores this week in warning that earnings will be lower than previously expected.

But specialty stores may emerge as the dark-horse winners of the season.

For many of these chains, the name of the game when planning this holiday season was inventory control.

The logic was that it is better to run out and have bare shelves than to be stuck with merchandise they’ll have to sell with little or no profit margin.

Consequently, these retailers were able to stick to their fourth-quarter earnings projections.

For instance, analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call expect The Gap to report earnings of 13 cents per share in the fourth quarter, up from a loss of 4 cents last year.

Women’s retailer Chico’s is expected to report 16 cents per share, up from 12 cents. Ann Taylor is expected to report 32 cents per share, up from 28 cents.

Pacific Sunwear should report 55 cents per share, up from 43 cents; and Abercrombie & Fitch is expected to report 80 cents in the quarter versus 78 cents last year.

“The holiday season didn’t go as well as we’d like it to, but it wasn’t as bad as some people are making it,” said J. Craig Shearman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation.

“We’ve been seeing retailers keep inventories in control, so there’s not as much to clear out,” Shearman added.

The truth about the season will come out on Jan. 9, said Charles Hill, director of research at Thomson First Call, when retailers will report sales for the month of December.

“That’s when the rubber will meet the road,” he said. “So far, analysts haven’t been bringing down apparel and retail numbers.”

Retail rebound?

The Grinch may have stolen Christmas from most big stores, but shoppers could soon stop giving them the cold shoulder. Here’s why:

* Specialty stores kept inventories at manageable levels.

* Shoppers spent 29 percent more online this holiday season than they did in 2001, accounting for $12.6 billion in sales from November through mid-December.* Overall, Americans spent 5 percent more this November than they did last year.